Vince Valitutti / Nautilus © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Nautilus
SUNDAY: This enjoyably cheesy underwater adventure, loosely based on Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, feels like a throwback to an earlier era of harmless escapism, a time when kids like me were enthralled with shows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and even Lost in Space. (This 19th-century submarine’s crew has its own version of a Will Robinson character — and an adorable dog sidekick for eye — rolling cutaways.) Star Trek: Discovery‘s Shazad Latif stars as Captain Nemo, an enslaved Indian prince who steals the Nautilus in a mission to take down the rapacious East India Mercantile Company that destroyed his family. His allies include a spunky female scientist, the anything-but-humble Humility Lucas (Georgia Flood). This is my inner 10-year-old’s favorite new show. Launches with two episodes.

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Impact X Nightline
SUNDAY: In “The Chrisleys: Life After Lockup,” marking the streaming series’ 100th episode, Nightline co-anchor Juju Chang debriefs Todd and Julie Chrisley, and their daughter Savannah, in one of the disgraced reality-star couple’s first interviews since being released from federal prison after being convicted of 12 counts of wire and bank fraud and tax evasion. They discuss their time behind bars, the presidential pardon that set them free and their response to those who think they should still be paying a price for their crimes.

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Grantchester
SUNDAY: Venturing into romcom territory, the popular light mystery keeps finding ways to foil vicar Alphy Kotteram’s (Rishi Nair) budding romance with Meg (Christie Russell-Brown), a spirited librarian. First came the unwelcome surprise revelation that she’s the bishop’s daughter, and now his grand gesture to invite her into the vicarage for a home-cooked (with supervision by Mrs. C) meal goes horribly wrong. A Saturday night murder at a local strip club brings a motley crew through the vicarage’s door: two strippers, a sketchy man of the cloth, DI Geordie Keating (Robson Green), and even Leonard (Al Weaver), who eagerly stages a reconstruction of the crime. The case gets solved, but can Alphy and Meg get any alone time? And what’s up with Leonard’s copious drinking?

National Geographic/Jason Isley
Underdogs
SUNDAY: This nature series is one of the summer’s funniest shows, courtesy of Ryan Reynolds‘ puckish narration, at its best in a season finale aptly titled “Total Grossout.” Whether observing manatees that use flatulence to stay afloat or fungus gnats that create gorgeously illuminated fly traps from the mucus lit by their posteriors, Reynolds is a scream. Here he is talking about a pearlfish that crawls into a creature’s rectum to hide from predators: “You see, the underdogs know that in the game of life, an unthinkably revolting solution can save your a**, and an a** can save your life.” Isn’t nature wonderful, even when it’s not beautiful?

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The Gilded Age
SUNDAY: “Isn’t this a lovely welcome home!” sputters robber baron George Russell (Morgan Spector) upon returning from business dealings in the Wild West to find a more refined showdown between wife Bertha (Carrie Coon) and daughter Gladys (Taissa Farmiga), who’s being manipulated into marriage to a titled Duke she barely knows. Such is life in 19th-century New York high society in this frothy period drama. Across the street in an older Fifth Avenue mansion, the long-suffering butler Bannister (Simon Jones) is finally forced to confront the issue bedeviling the household: Who’s in charge, the now-penniless Agnes (Christine Baranski) or her pious and newly wealthy sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon)?
INSIDE WEEKEND TV:
- NASCAR Cup Series: Quaker State 400 (Saturday, 7 pm/ET, TNT and truTV): NASCAR returns to TNT (with simulcast on truTV) for the first of five races in the new In-Season Challenge, a bracket-style competition where 32 drivers battle it out each week for a $1 million prize.
- A Machu Picchu Proposal (Saturday, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel): Rhiannon Fish stars in a Peruvian-set romcom as Katie, who accompanies her brother and his girlfriend to Machu Picchu to help facilitate his marriage proposal—which keeps getting thwarted by whimsical Chef Carlos (Alec Santos), who’s intent on sweeping Katie off her feet.
- Two for One (Saturday, 8/7c, Turner Classic Movies): Nathan Lane is the guest, picking two classic noirs for screening: 1944’s Double Indemnity and my personal all-time favorite, 1974’s Chinatown (10/9c), with an Oscar-winning screenplay by Robert Towne.
- Patience (Sunday, 8/7c, PBS): Now part of the investigative team, autistic police consultant Patience Evans (Ella Maisy Purvis) sifts through clues when a death at a natural-history museum reveals a possible fossil-trafficking scheme. She bonds over dinosaur bones with DI Bea’s (Laura Fraser) bullied son Alfie (Maxwell Whitelock), who might also be on the spectrum.